


Ungentle Creatures (and the Parasites that Change them)

by kabrox18



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen, How it should have been, I take a hammer and fix the canon, books of sorrow energy, parasitic matrix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21731467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabrox18/pseuds/kabrox18
Summary: 'You are not soft, Megatronus. You are born in hardship and only know it. Not all mecha need hardship to grow. Your masters were not gentle to you. How do I know that you understand what it is to be gentle to others?'
Relationships: Megatronus / Orion Pax, Optimus Prime/Megatron
Comments: 11
Kudos: 77





	Ungentle Creatures (and the Parasites that Change them)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm right and you know it

Orion Pax stepped onto the mine’s surface section, glancing around surreptitiously at the laborers. He was here for  _ one. _ He swore he could pick out the voice from the sea of them, all singing some old work song that times their pick-blows and drillwork.

“Megatronus?” he calls. Nobody responds. “Megatronus?” he tries again; still nothing. “Am I in the right area?” he murmurs, pulling up the map.

“I would say you aren’t,” a voice responds. He looks up, eyes spun narrow—that wasn’t Megatronus.

“Frag off,” another said, approaching from a dusty, clouded area. The first mech grunted and did wander off, even as Orion stared openly at the other.

He was slender, still lean from his youth and nearly swimming in armor plates made for a vastly bigger bot. There was a sinewy sort of strength about him, and he carried the large pick on his shoulder with ease and grace.

“I have not purchased that, yet,” he murmurs, and Orion feels like his spark blinked out. 

_ That _ was certainly Megatronus. There was no mistaking that rasp.

“Purchased what?”

“My name. I am still D-16, and only my pseudonym is Megatronus.” Orion looks startled by that, peering up at him and meeting the calm blue of his eyes.

“...I see,” he eventually mumbles. “I am Orion Pax.”

“Orion,” he says, in an agreeing tone. “You’re the mech I was corresponding with.”

“I am. Do you have a moment to talk?” D-16 looks away, glancing back to his fellows.

“Not long,” he says simply.

\--

They agreed to stick with textcomm and voice clips skip-slung over the local intranet cells. Some period later, D-16 offhandedly mentioned finally purchasing his name with help from winnings from an arena.

Orion felt something acidic and angry jump into his throat as he read it, swallowing thickly. Megatronus still had his rubbery sparkling vent-flaps when they'd last met, and even despite his grace most of the time, was a clumsy mess because of the size of his armor. It must've been a miracle granted straight from Primus that he survived, let alone  _ won. _

"I'd like to meet again," the end of the message read, "perhaps in a middle ground. Polyhex is a neutral land between the high of Iacon and lows of Kaon."

"I agree on Polyhex," he typed in reply, "and I have several cycles'-worth of vacation time to spend at the archive. I can block off a period to meet you in Polyhex."

"It is set, then. Tell me when you get the vacation set up, and I will meet you at the station."

\--

Orion steps off the transport, rearranging his bag and frowning at the ground. It was so crowded here, arguably more than even Iacon. It set his vents and jaw tight.

However, it was near impossible to miss Megatronus. He towered casually over everyone in the crowd, broad shoulders crowned in silver thorns raising above the masses easily. His arms, heavy and very nearly thick as Orion's trunk, hung loosely at his sides; the armor there, once loose and still-soft, had hardened into sharp angles and sturdy curves. Orion felt himself gawk and shook his head, wiping the dumbstruck look off his face as he approached. Megatronus looks down to him with those same calm but weary blue eyes, mouth quirking up for a split second.

"Orion. It is a pleasure to see you face-to-face again."

"The pleasure's all mine," he replied, tilting his head. "You've changed."

"Ai," he grunts. "Proper fueling and work does wonders for the body." He starts walking, easily carving a broad path through the mecha surrounding them. Orion follows close in his wake, watching the shift of his back plating in a curious squint.

\--

There is a restraint in Megatronus' movements, now; he was no longer a young-sparked miner with eyes as big as his aspirations. His chassis seemed controlled in every aspect, carefully held, armor arranged just so; even his vents were stubbornly even and smooth.

Orion watches the way he delicately lifts a cube of energon with little more than his clawtips, sipping it in tiny amounts and never taking more than a partial mouthful at a time.

"You've changed," he says again, maybe apropos of nothing.

"Strength is a difficult beast to chain," he explains. "The pits have taught me only how to partition it."

"So you really are a gladiator, now?"

"It paid for my name, my fuel. I can only thank it." He looks around a little, a glance to survey the immediate environment.

"I sense a catch," Orion replies, thumbing the edge of his own cube.

"I can't say."

"Mm. Perhaps I can watch you someday?" Megatronus looks to him, bemused but barely-visibly. "In the arena. Never had a taste for such things, but I'm willing to support you. Even if it means buying into the system."

"Unnecessary," he replies, peering at him as he takes another tiny sip of energon. "Watch on choice. Not on bias." He sets the cube down, looking disgusted by it all of a sudden.

"Alright," Orion concedes, not wishing to push the matter.

\--

Megatronus in the arena is violence given shape; he is death carved of  _ sentio metallico. _ The other mech, little more than pieces in the sandpit, is less. Megatron rips the cabling of their neck, lifting their head and tipping his chin up defiantly.

“I still function,” he calls, simply. The crowd bursts into screams and jeers and cries, and Megatronus’ handlers come out to bring him back in. He keeps the head, cabling coiled and tangled in the elegant joints of his knuckles.

Orion goes to meet him, nearly deflected by the pair of mecha he’s bracketed by.

“I am here by choice,” he says, lifting a hand to halt the gladiator’s protest. He sees a flash of fangs—that was new. Also new were the scars lining his mouth, settling right about where he filed into his teeth.

“You said you don’t have a taste for it,” he says, not arguing—just pointing out an observation. “And yet, you come to see me in the bloodiest match I’ve had.” His eyes, tinged an angry red, narrow. The handlers split off, clearly to fetch a medic and cleaning supplies.

“I came to see the champion,” he replies, folding his arms. “And see if the mech I met at the mines still persists past the violence.”

“To test me,” Megatronus clarifies, something like accusation in his posture. “You want to know if you need to drop me like a rotten fruit and forget all we’ve spoken of.”

“Your distrust is unfounded,” Orion says simply. “I have done no such thing, nor proven a want to.”

The medic arrives, gesturing for the hulking mech to bend down. He touches something and Megatronus blinks, eyes suddenly that cool blue again. Orion frowns slightly.

“Your interest is unwanted, Pax,” he says, more relaxed than before. It looks like the medic’s dropped some kind of suppressant into him. Orion feels his throat and tank clench.

“It’s not interest. It’s concern. A revolution born in blood is one that will only serve to become another bout of tyranny.”

Megatronus  _ chuckles. _

“Orion, you are either more naive than I previously assumed, or  _ stupid. _ Have you seen my fellows? The pitspawn that put on shows for the higher castes—more than half are victims of empurata. Government-sanctioned torture. More are victims of shadowplay. Criminals wiped of their emotions.”

“I know,” he says, soft and frustrated. “But I cannot let you kill and put yourself and these others into power only to lose yourself in it. You are not soft, Megatronus. You are born in hardship and only know it. Not all mecha need hardship to grow. Your masters were not gentle to you. How do I know that you understand what it is to be gentle to others?” The warrior seems to pause, stinging, and turns away.

“Fine. We will see how things go with your  _ gentler _ methods, Orion Pax.”

\--

The Senate was in a flurry.

“He must be stopped.”

“His horrific actions will freeze his recruitment!”

“How do we know? There are many criminals and scum roving on Cybertron, yet free and at large.”

“None of them will agree,” the senator promises.

Orion knows better. Even with the Matrix slowly curling fingers around his spark, making things hard to remember, he knows better.

“He won’t stop,” he interrupts. “He won’t stop until he’s taken what he believes he’s owed.”

“Then you will stop him and his disillusioned paramilitary.”

“He won’t be stopped by the likes of me alone.”

“Then we will send an army with you.” Orion smiles thinly in acceptance, even though he knows intimately well he cannot win. Maybe he can’t even slow Megatron. But it will quiet the senate, the same way they quieted the violence in Cybertron’s spark with gladiators.

\--

Megatron took the Immutable Senate Guard, breaking the first part of their name in his massive talons. He fired a small supernova into the chest of their chief, melting him into a pile of searing, molten-white metal.

“Slagmaker,” they called him. A new name in a list he didn’t care about. He meets Orion again, when his army circles Iacon Proper and holds the city under siege. Megatron has his home curled in his iron, clawed fist.

“Megatron,” he says, approaching. The warlord turns, eyes red again—the way they were in the pits. It made him look like a demon, smelted in the blackest forges of Kaon. Suiting.

“Optimus Prime,” he says. Orion smiles. Another name in a list he didn’t care for.

“The Senate sent me to kill you,” he offers. “I told them I wouldn’t be able to. They offered me an army.”

“I do not see it,” he rumbles in reply, looking around the rubble-filled intersection they stand opposite on.

“I came alone.”

“So you may die with the Senate and their dogs?”

“So I may consign my army to you. You will need more than empurata victims and shadowplayed mecha in your military.”

“You are no better than the Senate,” he retorts.

“Maybe not. I was reforged by them, and I feel their Matrix clouding my mind. But you have medics, yes? Bots who, in desperation, performed shadowplay.”

“What are you getting at, Prime?”

“Remove this parasite for me, and I will be your loyalest mech.”

**Author's Note:**

> I SWEAR I'M STILL WORKING ON AIR POWER 2 IT'S JUST GOTTA BE EDITED OK OK OK OK THANKS 4 PATIENCE


End file.
